“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”

Think of ways for computers to disappear, vanish into the background of the natural human environment

“Whenever people learn something sufficiently well, they cease to be aware of it.”

“tabs, pads and boards” – the different scales of interfaces

“Boards built by Richard Bruce and Scott Elrod at PARC currently measure about 40 by 60 inches and display 1024×768 black-and-white pixels.” – Haha. This is my computer screen resolution now, in a quarter of the size

Interesting to think about computers and applications dealing with information coming from/being stored/being displayed on many different machines and platforms

“Most important, ubiquitous computers will help overcome the problem of information overload. There is more information available at our fingertips during a walk in the woods than in any computer system, yet people find a walk among trees relaxing and computers frustrating. Machines that fit the human environment, instead of forcing humans to enter theirs, will make using a computer as refreshing as taking a walk in the woods.”

Summary/Response

The last paragraph of this paper is really the most interesting one to me. If we stop having to be aware of all of the information and technology we interact with, will this overload disappear?

The idea of different sized screens is very perceptive, but I think it has just about outlived its usefulness. it is now time to move beyond screens as our primary interface and work to make interfaces that blend in, that use 3d space

Some of the examples (ie, teleconference/video/lookup ) seem dated, but it’s interesting to realize that this technology, while possible, still hasn’t been perfected. I also think about how much information needs to be stored and sifted through if every interaction becomes a video conference, and every video conference is recorded for future analysis/playback. It is no wonder that HP and Dell were in a bidding war over a company that specializes in data storage!

I like the idea of technology that tells you where the open parking spot is.

“Appropriateness surpasses performance as the key to technological success.” (pg3)

We will stop carrying devices. Instead, we will walk up to ‘anonymous devices’ and they will adopt our ‘information personalities’ while also considering the need for privacy and security (pg 7)

cyberspace – everyone believes that there is a ‘there’ inside the screen (pg 9)

Virtual Reality failed because we orient with our bodies too, not just our minds (pg 10)

“As a form of urbanism, cyberspace was perhaps also some last version of what is sometimes called the project of transparency.” (pg 11)

“interaction designers now turn to the patterns of the living world as something other than a clean slate, and something to be understood, not overcome.” (pg 12)

“Flow itself now became the fundamental concern of the architect, not only for people and their vehicles, but for conceptual space.” (pg 13)

“Surveillance, for instance, has become an unfortunate fact of life. The loss of privacy has become a central theme in cultural studies of information technology” (pg15)

“Generally as information becomes more and more abundant, clear views through it become less and less possible.” (pg 15)

Idea of Microsoft Word Paperclip coming to the physical world is very scary

“Proactive information feeds treat all quiet time and space as something that needs filling. Portable and embedded devices take these streams out from your computer screen and into the world, where they are more difficult to turn off.” (pg 17)

“Only when technology makes deliberative and variable response to each in a series of exchanges is it at all interactive.” (pg 20)

“No longer just made of objects, computing now consists of situations.” (pg 21)

Summary/Response

There will be friction/fear about ubiComp until it becomes so ordinary that we fail to notice it or think about it

There will be hiccups, and things we didn’t think about, but we are already past the point of failing the way virtual reality did

People have different ideas about what ‘designing an interface’ means, but with ubicomp we will know we are successful when the interface becomes invisible/doesn’t require active participation

This article talks about how we will talk and wave our hands at interfaces of the future, but the one thing about typing interfaces is that they afford us privacy; people around us have to go to great lengths to see what we are typing, but it is very easy to just observe from afar or eavesdrop on an interaction that engages the entire body.

People don’t want interfaces to guess what they want, but they also don’t want to take the time, or have the skills, required to create custom interfaces. This poses a major problem, because everyone uses their devices and tools in different ways and for slightly different purposes. Interfaces won’t disappear into the environment if people have to actively customize them.

It is important to continually reevaluate the development of this technology in its environment, the world around us, as that environment changes. We keep designing for the world of tomorrow, but it is a moving target

It took me a really long time to attach wheels to something in any way that resembled a robot. It currently is a lot easier to control steering using speed and two wheels rather than one wheel and a servo. Maybe this will updated in the next version? I also only have one light sensitive resistor on this model, so the direction it turns is determined by the value the resistor reads. In the future, it would be great to have 4 readings rather than one, and compare them to determine direction.

void loop(){
/*
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // set the LED on
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // set the LED off
delay(1000); // wait for a second
*/
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++){
digitalWrite(digit[i], HIGH);
}

// The first serial port on my mac is the Arduino so I just open that.
// Consult the output of println(Serial.list()); to figure out which you
// should be using.
port = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[0], 9600);

// Fire a serialEvent() when when a linefeed comes in to the serial port.
port.bufferUntil(lf);
port.write(lf);
}

void system_sleep() { // set system into the sleep state wake on watchdog time out
cbi(ADCSRA,ADEN); // switch Analog to Digitalconverter OFF
set_sleep_mode(SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN); // sleep mode is set here
sleep_enable();
sleep_mode(); // System sleeps here
sleep_disable(); // Continues execution here when watchdog timed out
sbi(ADCSRA,ADEN); // switch Analog to Digitalconverter ON
}

“Ultimately, there are only these two basic states or basic phases, and everything of interest takes place on the boundary between them: on the boundary between chaos and order, on the boundary between water and ice, on the boundary between the finite and the infinite computation process. Right where we cannot know whether it all ends or not.” (374)

“”The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe.” But that is what we are consciously trying to do with the artificial lives we live in our technological civilizations.” (375)

“Technology is about making things predictable and repeatable so we do not need to devote so much time and attention to them. … But technology is therefore dull too. … When we are bored by technology, in a sense we are bored by our own perception of the world. … The problem is then that we simulate the world as if it consisted of straight lines and other tidy shapes.” (384)

“The interesting stuff lies between the completely random and the completely planned.” (392)